


dust can't settle

by DuskDragon39, LeanMeanSaltineMachine



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Does not bother with Smirke's 14, Dubiously Sentient Car, Gen, Lee and Dusk's Spooky Roadtrip of Doom, Multiple Voices, No Spoilers for The Magnus Archives, PodTogether 2020, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 1.5-2 Hours, Road Trips, Screenplay/Script Format, Self-Insert, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuskDragon39/pseuds/DuskDragon39, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeanMeanSaltineMachine/pseuds/LeanMeanSaltineMachine
Summary: You open the file."The following collection of audio recordings comes from a road trip undertaken by Lee and Dusk in the summer and fall of 2015. The two traveled to the Chicago and Denver branch offices to collect old statements for archival purposes. They ended up coming back not only with statements from the branch offices, but from across the country- including some recordings of their own supernatural experiences.... and no, we still don't know why the car could talk."A series of statements from across the American West and Mid-West, as collected by two Archival Assistants from the San Francisco Institute for the Unusual and Paranormal.
Relationships: Original Avatar Character(s) & Original Avatar Character(s) (The Magnus Archives), Original Avatar Character(s) (The Magnus Archives) & Original Character(s), Original Character(s) & Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Pod_Together 2020





	1. Shasta Lake

**Author's Note:**

> Voice Credits:  
> Taylor Garcia & Metadata - MouseK  
> Lee - Kai (LeanMeanSaltineMachine)  
> Dusk - Dusk (DuskDragon39)  
> Grace (Firelight) - Grace (nonsycamore)  
> Lauren (Empty City) - Lauren (LaurenBrightWing)  
> Car (Recording: Gas & Dust to Dust) - Lynx (ShadowLynx248)  
> Unknown (Dust to Dust) - carboncopies  
> Bianca (Storks & Cranes) - Lee (aldergroves)  
> Rin (Dragon's Cauldron) - ItsADrizzit  
> Unknown (Something There) - olive2read
> 
> Thank you to everyone who gave us statement ideas, and to all of the lovely people who donated their voices for this project! Full credits & links can be found in the final chapter of this fic. Downloads for each individual statement can also be found in each chapter. 
> 
> Warnings for each statement are included at the start of each chapter. All warnings are included at the start of the full podfic. Take care of yourselves out there.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Giant fish in Shasta Lake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Overturned boat

**Streaming and download links:**

**Full Podfic:**   
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/jdscjiy74t0svkp/dust%20can%27t%20settle.mp3?dl=0)   
[Paraka Download](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2020/dust%20can%27t%20settle.mp3)

**Individual Statements:**

Archivist's Note:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/kbzvifzwxeezfyc/Archivist%27s%20Note.mp3?dl=0)

Recording: San Franscisco:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/s5uah8g2vshhi90/Recording-%20San%20Franscisco.mp3?dl=0)

Shasta Lake:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/iy6y88re0jdwipo/Shasta%20Lake.mp3?dl=0)

* * *

**Archivist’s Note:**

The following collection of audio recordings comes from a road trip undertaken by Lee and Dusk in the summer and fall of 2015. The two traveled to the Chicago and Denver branch offices to collect old statements for archival purposes. They ended up coming back not only with statements from the branch offices, but from across the country - including some recordings of their own supernatural experiences. 

It is recommended that any new assistant sent to the branch offices for collection listen to the recordings in this file - while they don’t represent the entirety of their journey (the recordings for which are both archived in the deep stacks and in the digital database under S;F15.2015.06-09:LD), it is more than enough to serve as an overview of their journey and to inform new assistants as to the consequences of collecting their own statements. 

This file is available to the general public upon request. Last names have been redacted for privacy. 

And no, we still don’t know why the car could talk. 

Signed,

Taylor Garcia

Head Archivist at the San Francisco Institute for the Unusual and Paranormal

**Recording: San Francisco**

_Location:_ San Francisco, California

 _Date:_ June 20th, 2015

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Purpose and Predictions

  
  


[SFX: Tape recorder clicks on]

DUSK

Alright, so we just passed out of San Francisco, heading north-

LEE

….What’re you doing?

DUSK

 _[awkward pause, presumably holding up tape recorder]_ Recording?

LEE

Why…?

DUSK

I’m bored, and if something’s going to happen on this trip we might as well have a record of it. 

LEE

Dusk, it’s been like thirty minutes. 

DUSK

I fail to see your point. 

_[resumes speaking into tape recorder]_

Anyways, we set out… half an hour ago from UP, heading north towards Washington. The plan currently is to swing around through Montana to the Chicago Branch Office, and then down and around to the Denver Branch Office, collecting statements as we go.

LEE

Should we make a statement now, while you have the recorder out? 

DUSK

… Like a _statement_ statement or?

LEE

 _[amused]_ You want to make a fake statement?

DUSK

I mean, do we have any statements that UP hasn’t picked up yet?

… Statement statements, I mean. 

LEE

I mean. I definitely don’t tell them everything that goes on in my world.

DUSK

...Huh. 

LEE

Did you really start to work at UP Institute without a story of your own?

DUSK

Used to work at the Denver Branch Office, actually. Just sorta got in the habit of writing down vaguely supernatural events. Or just, y’know, describing that one really creepy bike trail…. It was usually slow enough that most things just ended up in the archive.

_[vaguely amused]_ So no, I definitely don’t have any statements the institute hasn’t picked up yet. 

LEE

 _[exaggerated disappointment]_ And here I thought we could be partners in crime.

In all seriousness, it’ll be nice to have someone like you helping. Besides the friendship, of course. You’re used to describing supernatural encounters in ways the archives like. I’m… not. I tend to, ah, stumble into the things and experience them first hand, or hear the stories colloquially. Writing them _down?_ Recording them? An interesting proposition.

DUSK

Maybe we're well suited. You find the stories, I write them down.

The company's nice too, of course.

LEE

Heh. Thanks. _[beat]_ I don’t suppose that’s why they put us together? Or configured the team as they did? I mean I know it was our idea in the first place but, you figure they would have stopped us if it were a terrible thing to go and do. They gave us _money._

DUSK

Unfortunately I'm not sure Mx. Director or Taylor have, like, any financial sense whatsoever. I caught a glimpse of the record book once, and [audible shudder]

Also I'm fairly certain anything that traumatizes the assistants is a good thing Taylor's book.

LEE

You are _filling_ me with confidence.

DUSK

 _[snort]_ Proactive actions usually end in death. First rule of the Archives.

LEE

 _[grumbling]_ I hate this. _[a heavy sigh]_ You know what this means though, right Dusk?

DUSK

_[audibly smiling]_

What?

LEE

We have to - _get to_ \- eat as much greasy, bad, roadtrip food as we can along the way.

DUSK

Oh _hell_ yes. 

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks off]

**Shasta Lake**

_Location:_ Shasta Lake, California

 _Date:_ June 20th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Hope 

_Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

Original statement taken August 23rd, 2010

_Topic:_ A giant fish in Shasta Lake

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking on] 

DUSK

So it turns out Shasta does have a statement already associated with it. 

LEE

Huh. Really?

DUSK

Yeah, one sec -

Right- uh, this one’s about, and I quote “A giant fish in Shasta Lake.”

_[deep breath]_

In hindsight, this is such a strange story - it feels like something that I dreamed, you know? Something that’s not quite real. 

But your institute is a place for tales like mine, I’ve heard. I’d love to read some of the other stories you have down here someday. It must be a veritable goldmine of experiences and folktales. 

Sorry, I’m getting off track. I’m here to tell you about Shasta Lake, not to ramble on about my own love of folklore and urban legends. 

Shasta Lake. Where to start with Shasta Lake. First off it’s one of the largest lakes I’ve ever seen- I remember hearing something about it being the largest reservoir in Cali. Secondly, it’s gorgeous. Giant evergreens back right up onto the shore. The water is deep and cold and perfect for swimming in on days when it feels like the sun is trying to bake everyone alive.

I think the most important thing to know about Shasta Lake though (for this story, at least) is the giant sturgeon that call the bottom of the lake home. There are other fish there too, of course - catfish, bass, salmon and crappie to name a few. But the most important are the sturgeon. 

There’ve been stories of giant sturgeon in Shasta Lake circulating for decades. Everyone knows somebody whose second cousin’s best friend’s father-in-law saw one of the monsters. There’s been photographs of bears feasting on fish that look almost too big to be real. A few years back, a couple of guys even found one of the things (eight feet long if you can believe it) choking on a catfish. They pulled out the catfish and helped get it safely back in the lake, then posted the entire thing on facebook. 

Got themselves a couple of pretty headlines in local papers, too. It’s not unheard of for sturgeon to reach fourteen feet, of course. But eight feet isn’t a small length either. 

When I was a little kid, my grandfather used to take me out on the lake. He’d catch bass and trout, and I’d sit on the side of the boat, dangling my fingers in the water and wondering if I’d get any fish to nibble on them. My grandfather’d chuckle at me, tell me that if I wasn’t careful the sturgeon would try to swallow them. 

I just rolled my eyes at him. He was always telling stories like that. Giant fish and talking trees and haunted houses. 

Maybe that’s where I got it from. 

Anyways. 

By the time I was seventeen, I’d mostly lost any interest I had in fishing. Sitting still for hours waiting for something to bite at my hook wasn’t my idea of fun. I hated what came after catching the fish, too. Cleaning and dressing was just gross, and though I loved the eating part none of the rest… really appealed. 

Finally, my grandfather asked me to come out to the lake with him one last time. He was getting on in years, he said, and he wanted to spend some time with his only grandchild. 

What was I supposed to tell him? No? 

So I agreed, and we went out one early spring morning. Grandad pulled up at one of the lake’s marinas. We ducked inside, spoke to the clerk, and came back out with a boat rental and several bulky life vests. Ten minutes later, we were out on the lake, motoring up towards the Sacramento River Arm. The sun was just beginning to rise higher in the sky, and the morning was chilly. A breeze swept across the lake, sending goosebumps rising across my skin. 

Grandad just smiled and leaned back, throwing his hook and line far out into the depths. 

The forecast had called for clear skies and temperatures in the mid-70s. By noon, however, clouds started to roll in. 

“Looks like rain,” I said. 

He snorted. “It’ll blow over soon. We still have time.” 

I eyed the clouds nervously, but didn’t say anything. He knew the lake better than I did, I thought. We’d be fine. 

We spent the next hour waiting on our lines and making small talk. Grandad spun another tale about the massive sturgeon living in the lake. I groaned and rolled my eyes at him, all exasperated seventeen year-old. He just laughed. 

It was like I was eight years old all over again. Just me, grandad, the boat, and his stories. 

And then, because the universe has an innate sense of dramatic timing -

That’s when the storm struck. 

Waves lashed at our little boat, sending us rocking first one way than another. Grandfather started to reel in his line, finally ready to pack it up as the two of us were doused in a solid sheet of water falling from the sky. 

Then the reel stuck. He tugged at it once, twice, and then it was unraveling, faster and faster as something pulled the line out into the lake. The boat shook, and then the line was out and Granddad was being pulled towards the edge. 

I reached out and wrapped my arms around his waist, trying to brace myself against the water-slick floor. Grandad was grimly holding onto the line, still trying to reel it back in. 

“Let it go!” I yelled. He shook his head. The rod started to bend forwards, and we both leaned back. My foot slipped on a patch of water, and suddenly we were both landing with a thud in the bottom of our boat. The rod went flying off into the water and disappeared beneath the lashing waves. 

We both laid there for a minute, the rain dousing our faces and water thoroughly soaking our clothes. 

“So,” I finally said. 

“Biggest fish you ever saw,” my grandfather replied. The boat fell silent for a moment longer, and then we both started laughing. It was the type of laughter you only ever get in these situations. Everything’s suddenly, inexplicably, gone to pieces around you, and all you can do is laugh at it because looking at it it’s just so hilarious. We were out on a fishing trip, a storm blew up, and Granddad lost his fishing rod to something in the lake? It sounded like a story Granddad himself would tell. 

Thunder crashed overhead, and we slowly began picking ourselves back up. The storm was still raging around us, and we were both soaked through and shivering. 

“Right,” Granddad said. “Let’s get inside.”

I couldn’t agree fast enough. 

A minute later, we were both paddling through the lake, headed as quickly as we could for the Marina. We hadn’t gone more than fifty feet though, when something bumped against my paddle. I looked down, but the water was choppy and dark. It was impossible to see anything. 

Behind me, Granddad coughed. I was so focused on the water that it startled me, and I jumped in my seat, twisting around. As I did, something else caught my eye. The water in front of our boat had started churning and bubbling.

Our boat began rocking back and forth in the waves, faster and faster. Above our head lightning cracked. In that brief flash of light, the water was illuminated, and I could see down into the water for just a second. Something was coming. It was big. It was covered in thick, bony plates. And it was headed straight for our boat. 

I screamed and began backpaddling. My grandfather was yelling at me, asking what was going on. I just kept yelling “Get back! We need to get back!” 

And then it was too late and the thing was on us, leaping up out of the water and arcing over our heads. As it came up, it opened its mouth, and I looked down its throat, sure that I was about to be swallowed whole. Then there were thirty feet of grey, armor-plated sturgeon, leaping through the air. Behind it trailed Granddad’s bright yellow fishing rod. 

Before either of us could do more than scream, it was crashing down in the water. The splash ripped through the storm with a sound like thunder, sending us careening through the water and up into the Arm again. We scrabbled at the boat’s benches, leaning this way and that, trying desperately not to overturn. 

With a final surge, the sturgeon disappeared underneath the water. The swell swept towards us, and our boat, already off balance, overturned, sweeping us both into the freezing lake water. 

For a moment everything was head-over-heels, lake water up my nose and the hard wood of the boat somewhere underneath me, beside me, over my head. I opened my mouth to yell, and lake water rushed in, filling my mouth with the indescribable taste of fish and algae. I thrashed, trying desperately to claw my way up, but I couldn’t find purchase on the water. 

Then I bobbed up, my bulky lifejacket pulling me up and out into the air. 

I’ve never been so glad to see the sky in my life. 

Beside me, Granddad pushed up to the surface, spluttering and shaking his head. The boat drifted beside us, the waves suddenly calm. The rain stopped. The clouds were already beginning to clear. 

I never did see that sturgeon again. Although, to be fair, I haven’t been back to Shasta Lake in a long time. Never was quite able to work up the courage to go fishing again, although Granddad continued to fish there for the rest of his life. 

It’s still there, for all I know. And who knows. Sturgeons live a long, long time. Maybe someone else will find the giant fish at the bottom of Shasta Lake someday. 

Aside from the fish itself, I gained a new respect for Granddad’s stories that day. All stories, really. How many of them are true? I don’t think I dreamed it. It feels too real for that, and my grandfather’s started telling the story already. And looking at your library here, at your archive, I have to wonder- how many statements like mine do you have buried down here, telling tales about things most people would never think to imagine? 

DUSK

Statement ends. 

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking off] 


	2. Beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stars and the universe at large.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Nihilism, insignificance

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Beauty:  
  
[Download Link](https://www.dropbox.com/s/c7e005o0j4enik6/Beauty.mp3?dl=0)

* * *

**Beauty**

_Location:_ Motel near Spokane, Washington

 _Date:_ June 25th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Elijah

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Stars and the universe at large.

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks on]

LEE

Statement begins: 

I hope you’ll forgive me if I wax on poetically. I _know_ I’ll wax on poetically. It’s just beautiful, the night sky, you know? I’ve never known a person to disagree. To call the sky cold, maybe. Distant. And it is, in a way that fills me with wistfulness and awe. But.. it’s warmer now. Those stars in the sky follow me wherever I go. They watch over me. I am no longer stretching towards something that will never love me.

It started when I was young, just a child. I had just watched _The Lion King_ , and Pumba was explaining how stars were balls of gas millions of miles away. I went outside that night and pondered. I watched the void between the lights, I felt the cool summer breeze and smelled fall coming in. It was so peaceful. It was so still.

By the time starlight reaches us it is history. The present glared around me as history shone down on me and I felt the sheer insignificance of my presence.

I was a child. Those were the majesties. What was I supposed to do but bow?

It was so cold and distant growing up. I was so - _sad_. That everything that had importance was not important, that I offered up my memories and my emotions to the sky every night and nothing was returned except for calm acceptance of their due.

I don’t quite remember what changed. But one night, the stars were watching me back.

It - it was electrifying! To be pinned in place not by weight and gravity but the desire to be known. And oh, the stars I had known all my life finally looked and found me to be worth smiling upon. There are so many constellations, every configuration different to a planet or hemisphere. But I knew that all those stories now recognized me in return. I belonged up there.

The heavens watched me. They wanted to know everything there was to know about me, about my life, those around me. They were filled with a hunger that I could only scramble to soothe. But the effort was enough. They have learned so much - I have learned so much.

We wrap ourselves in fabrics covered in nebulas and noble gases. Our doodles scratch out stars we learned to draw in elementary school. We treasure the dark, twinkling sky, regardless of whether we know that night personally from our windows or a passing familiarity from stories and online, gleaned from word because the city glare is just bright enough to overshadow.

Neil Gaiman wondered, _“Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at the stars because we are human?”_ And everywhere I see quotes of _you are made of star-stuff_ and _you are a way for the universe to know itself._

But are we really?

Can we look at ourselves - can I look at you - can I look at _myself_ and see the universe?

It’s no coward who can stare up at the almost-void and know how small we are, how vast it is, and _keep looking_. I look up at the stars and I don’t understand. I realize I don’t know anything, not truly, not yet. A stranger mix of fear, hopelessness, thrill, and joy I have never felt.

We are always wanting to know ourselves. To understand. What a beautiful thing we must be to equal the universe! For the universe to be running through our veins! And it is beautiful. But it’s not something we understand. We don’t have to.

We see ourselves out there in the dark. Maybe empty, maybe full of stars, never quite something to grab onto. If we and the universe can’t be understood….

We can at least be the same amount of unknown.

The stars and I are filled with the same hunger. I see it in you, too.

LEE

Statement ends.

It’s hard not to be taken breathless by a statement like that. It makes me want to stand outside and watch the stars too.

DUSK

I know what you mean. There’s so many stories and intersections in our sky… 

_[trails off]_

What do you think they meant by hunger?

LEE

To be known, I suppose. To learn. And that’s what we’re out here for, right?

DUSK

...Still unsettling.

LEE

 _[laughs]_ I’ll give you that. _[pause]_ Do you think they write poetry?

DUSK

Who, the statement giver? Probably.

LEE

Mm. Let’s go to bed in this creepy ass hotel!

DUSK

 _[laughs]_ Sounds good to me. Maybe we’ll even get a statement out of it.

LEE

Something something echoing floors, something something abandoned Bates Motel?

DUSK

Hey, the place is cheap.

LEE

I bet the bananas are brown at the continental breakfast tomorrow.

DUSK

The better ammo to splat statement givers who won’t back off.

LEE

Heh, I suppose. I like that. Better than tomatoes, anyway.

DUSK

You wanna put a chair in front of the door?

LEE

...Yeah.

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks off]


	3. Firelight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A campsite visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Hypnotism, mild drinking

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Firelight:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/4336he85xy0zs9b/Firelight%20MP3.mp3?dl=0%22)

* * *

**Firelight**

_Location:_ Crystal Caves, Minnesota

 _Date:_ July 10th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Grace

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ A campsite visitor

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking on]

LEE

Hey Dusk?

DUSK

Yeah?

LEE

You don’t think anything’s gonna follow us out of this cave, do you?

DUSK

....Well now I’m afraid something will.

_[uneasy pause]_

I’m sure whatever it is, we can figure out how to handle it. We do come from a research institute.

LEE

Right…

I just don’t want to show too much hubris, you know?

DUSK

You’re right. We should stay in a hotel tonight, and make sure to stay in well-sanctioned areas.

LEE

I mean, maybe if something _does_ follow us it’ll get lost in the sameness of the hallways, ha.

DUSK

 _[amused]_ And what, start haunting the place?

LEE

Maybe it would make a nice painting.

DUSK

 _[laughs]_ That said, I don’t know of any way to turn entities into paintings.

LEE

You never played Luigi’s Mansion?

DUSK

...Do you have a Transmogrifier on you?

LEE

...Fair point. _[sighs]_ Well, let’s get started. These spooky statements won’t find themselves.

[SFX: Tape recorder turning off]

[SFX: Tape recorder turning on]

GRACE

You want me to talk into this thing? Aren’t you guys supposed to have hi-tech equipment for recording people and storing what you hear?

DUSK

Tape recorders often pick up stories that would otherwise be digitally distorted.

GRACE

...Huh. I guess that makes sense. Ghosts being able to flicker lights and all, or so they say.

DUSK

Right.

Whenever you’re ready.

GRACE

This is something that was told to me, rather than happened to me. It’s become something of a family legend, or a warning. ‘Don’t mess with things you don’t know,’ maybe, or just ‘these things find you even if you didn’t summon them.’

I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, and there was never a lesson. Just a story to be told as night came on, or in the bright lights of a room surrounded by those who would either believe or dismiss you out of hand. A scary story, or something to laugh at and be thankful you escaped.

My father was camping here, with some friends, and they had been drinking for a little bit without getting rowdy. Just sharing some beers under the stars and enjoying good company, so the story goes. Then they saw the cave light up with fire, and were understandably concerned and confused. This only escalated when they saw the figure dancing.

It was unevenly proportioned, with a torso that twitched into arms and fingers that were the swaying of branches over the entrance. It was obviously humanoid, and erratically moving around the flames as if dancing. My father described it as dancing. I can’t help but picture one of those car salesman balloon things, that float and bob in the air.

After some conferencing, the group of them decided to go over. No one felt like being left behind while someone else checked it out, and they’d been camping enough together to trust in the benefits of the buddy system. As they walked closer, one of my father’s friends - Will - became hypnotized by the movement. He stopped walking and started drifting, his eyes distant.

He snapped out of it when the group of them was pushed to the ground about 300 yards away from the cave entrance.

And that’s how my father describes it - they were pushed, right over, some 200 pound men. Now, they had been drinking, but all of them tripping in that same spot at the same time? It seems unlikely to me. Especially because the thing took that time to run - when they looked up, the firelight was gone.

They found the coordination in them to run over to the entrance where the light had been and found a tiny firepit that was cold to the touch. It hadn’t been used in days, at the least.

They didn’t get any sleep that night.

Maybe that would be the end of it but… My father took me here, one weekend, to show me the cave. And while in our tent, shadows played on the canvas in the shape of an erratically dancing figure.

It feels so… menacingly welcoming. I think it wants us to dance. To what music, I don’t know, but I fear if I matched the movements I would never stop. I would simply join them in the light and move to a rhythm I couldn’t hear. I would abandon the world and we would live here in the forest, surrounded by the comforting walls of the cave.

Obviously I didn’t join him - it. And it never knocked or came any closer than enough to throw shadows on the wall. When I woke up the next morning, there were no footprints.

I didn’t really expect to see any though.

LEE

Do you think you’ll ever dance?

GRACE

 _[pauses to think]_ I- I don’t think so. I’m happy here, being an electrician, living with a bunch of my queer friends. There - there’s a mystery to it, sure, and I think about it wistfully, but I don’t feel any true need to join it.

DUSK

Probably for the best.

GRACE

Probably. _[pause]_ Is that all you needed?

DUSK

Oh! Yes. Thank you.

LEE

Contact us if you feel the need to dance, okay? Or... if it follows you. I don’t think - I don’t know that it would follow you. But if it did. You could talk to us about it.

GRACE

...Thank you. I’ll do that.

[SFX: Footsteps walking away]

LEE

That was creepy as hell.

DUSK

I’ll say. Remind me not to go caving any time soon.

LEE

Hey Dusk, don’t go caving any time soon.

DUSK

 _[dryly]_ Thanks Lee. I knew I could count on you.

LEE

 _[beaming]_ Anytime.

Oh! Statement ends.

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking off]


	4. Empty City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cleveland, Ohio

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Empty City:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/c7e005o0j4enik6/Beauty.mp3?dl=0)  


Recording: Gas:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/eeacs0cqmq9pu5y/Recording%20-%20Gas.mp3?dl=0)  


* * *

**Empty City**

_Location:_ Cincinnati, Ohio

 _Date:_ July 30th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Lauren

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Cleveland, Ohio

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking on] 

LAUREN

I don’t really have a story, exactly, but… You asked for spooky and I can personally testify that there is something so fucking creepy about Cleveland Ohio. 

DUSK

Hey, we’re here for creepy spooky stuff. You got something, we’ll take it. 

DUSK

As soon as you’re ready uh….?

LAUREN

Lauren. Alright. 

_[deep breath]_

The first time I visited Cleveland, I was maybe thirteen or fourteen. At that point, I lived maybe an hour south in Mansfield with my parents. None of us… particularly liked traveling. My mum always got carsick after about half an hour, I hated being cooped up for longer than ten minutes at a time, and there was always enough to do with me in school and my parents working that we didn’t really care. We had family in Cleveland though, and so when Aunt Jemma got married, up we went. 

It was snowing by the time we turned into the city. The wind had whipped up a fog off the lake, and it was like driving through some weird horror story. Occasionally you’d see the shadows of houses and trees rising suddenly out of the gloom, only to disappear again into the fog. The streetlamps were like little islands of light in this- eerie, white stillness. 

There were people, too. I think that’s what sticks in my head. There were always people there, collars turned up and scarves wrapped tightly around their faces in a last-ditch attempt to keep out the chill. Despite that, they were never… enough, somehow. The city was half-abandoned, left to the fog and the snow and the cold. It was like- walking through a graveyard at night. We were alone there, the last bit of life left in a dying place. 

Finally, we pulled up to Jemma’s house. My parents got out of the car, hurrying through the snow and fog.

I just stood there for a minute, surrounded by snow and silence and the whisper of my own breath. My parents were right there, I kept telling myself. I was surrounded by people, even if they were all inside or asleep. 

But...

But the road was too quiet. But I felt like there should have been a few others. But the silence was everywhere, and I could feel the fog sinking into my bones. But. But. But. 

The wedding went fine. No sudden interruptions, aside from Great-Aunt Hattie getting drunk off her ass and cracking lewd jokes at Jemma and her new husband. 

That was the first time I went up there. There were others, of course. 

Ten years later, I went back up there on a business trip. It was winter again, of course. There was the snow falling, the strange lack of people, the few on the streets hurrying by with their heads down and eyes on the ground. I was just- 

I was driving down the street, trying to make out the street signs. And suddenly there was nothing. Just- Silence. 

Nothing but silence. 

There was no one on the streets. No one driving past me, throwing up snow and threatening to blind me. No lights were on. Even the rumble of the engine seemed… weirdly distant.

It was just me, the snow, and an empty city. 

Maybe that’s what creeped me out so badly. 

It was an empty city. 

You’ve been to abandoned places before I bet. Yeah. You seem like the type. People who go wandering in hostile places because they’re cool or interesting or some shit. The type to walk into a house marked for destruction just to see if it really is haunted. 

So maybe you know what I mean. There’s that strange distance to it, abandoned places. They’re dead or dying or no longer alive, and as you wander through them they’re filled to the fucking brim with ghosts. 

You’re surrounded by ghosts, but you’re entirely, absolutely, alone. 

I was the intruder in this strange, lonely place. Me with my loud car and loud thoughts and louder voice. How dare I impede upon this solitude, this lonely city? 

_How fucking_ _dare I_?

So yeah. Cleveland, Ohio. Fucking creepy. 

LAUREN

… Guess I had more of a story in me than I thought.

DUSK

Did you ever go back there?

LAUREN

Oh yeah. Go there at least once every two months or so. Work usually, though I’ll sometimes stop by Aunt Jemma’s house. 

DUSK

Is it…?

LAUREN

 _[brightly]_ Still fucking creepy? Oh yeah. Nothing like it was those first two times though. You see people but it feels like there are far too few? There’s enough to reassure you that someone lives there, usually, but like. Definitely nowhere near enough. 

My aunt doesn’t mind it though, and my work pays well enough, so. 

DUSK. 

_[thoughtful]_ Huh. Well, thank you. 

LAUREN. 

Sure. And- thank you for listening, I guess? I hope that’s what you were looking for. 

DUSK

 _[short laugh]_ It was perfect, thanks. As I said. Any creepy stuff is more than welcome. 

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking off]

_[pause]_

  
  


**Recording: Gas**

_Location:_ Unknown

 _Date:_ August 1st, 2015

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Archival assistants’ car

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking on]

DUSK

_[thoughtful]_

Hey, Lee, what’s the last time we had to fill the car up?

LEE

About… Well, about a week back. After the car woke up during the cave visit.

DUSK

...So what’s powering it?

LEE

…Itself? Uh. 

[SFX: Radio crackles]

CAR

Does it matter as long as we’re still moving?

DUSK

Have I mentioned that I hate that our car talks now. 

CAR

I am driving, you know. 

DUSK

Thanks, I hate it. 

CAR

Excuse you. 


	5. Dust to Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dust, and associated monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Violence, manipulation, loss of humanity, mild body horror, attempted murder of major characters

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Dust to Dust:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4p7r9xs8axgafz/Dust%20to%20Dust%20MP3.mp3?dl=0)  


* * *

**Dust to Dust**

_Location:_ I10 between New Mexico and Arizona

 _Date:_ August 23rd, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Unknown

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Dust, and associated monsters

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks on.]

DUSK

_[nervously]_

Uhh Lee-

LEE

Hmm?

[SFX: Window rolling up]

LEE

...Why?

DUSK

Sandstorm.

[SFX: Wind howling, brakes screeching, sand hitting windows]

LEE

Where did that come from? Shouldn’t we have seen it coming?

DUSK

Uh, Lee, I’m not sure this is a normal sandstorm. 

LEE

What -

DUSK

Look out towards my side.

LEE

So that’s a figure made out of dust, right. I’m not just seeing that. 

DUSK

I think it’s approaching us.

[SFX: Something knocking on a car window]

CAR

[SFX: Radio crackles]

LEE

You better turn back off you sorry bastard.

[SFX: Car window rolling down. Wind noises suddenly increase.]

DUSK

_[barely audible swearing]_

VOICE

_[the voice is low, sses drawn out, almost sing-songy]_

It’s in your eyes and in your throat. 

It’s in your lungs and in each mote

Eyes and ears and mouth and breath

Down and down and down into-

DUSK

_[crosstalk, muttering]_

Well, that’s not ominous at all. 

VOICE:

_[harsh laughter]_

The dust surrounds you. Every swing of the shovel brings up another puff of fine, dark soil. It settles on your skin. It settles in the creases in your clothes. 

It settles. 

You breathe, and your mouth tastes gritty. The dust rasps over the back of your throat and you cough. Your lungs are heavy. 

So heavy. 

So tired. 

And you are dust more than you are person now, more shifting soil than solid flesh or blood.

The dust is everywhere. 

Should you care? You think you should. 

Your shovel bites into the rocks. More dust. In your eyes this time. You blink. Once. Twice. 

It’s strange, how the dust gets everywhere. You can feel it coating your eyes and lungs and throat, mouth and breath and blood and bone. 

Your skin is dust, your blood is silt, your bones are rock. 

You are drawn to the earth, of the earth-

You heard that somewhere, didn’t you? Dust to dust. 

Dust to dust and ash to ash and shouldn’t you stop digging? You should probably stop digging.

But you are dust and so

You 

Descend. 

Blood and breath and bone and lung-

Dust and silt and sand and rock-

You descend, and there you drown. 

Sometimes the wind picks up, and you’re thrown across the land, your mind held by the dust of your body. You sweep across rock and bramble, bury each until they too are of the earth. 

Dust to dust, you don’t think, you can’t think. What is thought? Why should it matter to you, who is dust?

But there is something new, on the ribbon of rock that cuts across your earth. It has lighted eyes and there is something-

Watching?

Interesting, you think. But you don’t think, because you’re dust, and dust doesn’t think. 

You surround them, and they watch and don’t ask but you-

You are watched and they will choke on it.

Bone and lung and blood and breath, 

Down and down and down into death. 

[SFX: Car motor revving, someone hitting the dashboard, wind sounds]

DUSK

Fuck, the window’s- _[coughing]_

LEE

 _[hoarse]_ Fuck electrical systems, I want manual windows from now on!

DUSK

_[muffled]_

Sounds good. Do we have- masks?

LEE

We can take off our shirts and use the water in our water bottles? I don’t give a fuck right now.

DUSK

 _[hacking]_ Fuck- inhaler- water’s in the pack by your feet. 

LEE

Got it. _[heavy coughing_ ]

SFX: zipper unzipping, rifling through a bag, water bottle uncapping

SFX: water pours

DUSK

 _[coughing]_ Thanks. 

LEE

Do - Flee, fight, or hide? Maybe the backseat? Or- the trunk might be big enough? But we do have the flesh guy in there -

DUSK

_[indecipherable shout]_

[SFX: Car revving, someone hitting the dashboard]

IF YOU DON’T START NOW, YOU STUPID CAR, I WILL TAKE OUR TIRE IRON TO YOUR PAINT JOB. 

LEE

_[laughing, almost desperately; a cough]_

Ah, Dusk, I think The Car and you are destined to have a rivalry. So that takes one option away. Do we have an easily accessible tire iron? Might make a good weapon here.

DUSK

… I think it’s in the trunk. _[softly, but with feeling]_ Fuck.

LEE

Plastic’s bad for the environment, right? What if we just chucked our empty water bottle at it?

DUSK

_[a snort that turns into coughing halfway through]_

It’s not letting up. Worth a try. 

LEE

...Nope. Just blew into the wind. Blast.

So. Hunker down in the backseat or under the dashboard? Or run at ‘im?

DUSK

Leaving the car sounds like a bad idea. Backseat?

_[the poem/song starts being whispered in the background, under the sound of the wind. It slowly starts to get louder as the avatar approaches the car again.]_

LEE

I hate this. I hate the waiting, I hate my throat right now, I hate the car stalling, I hate this whole situation. I hate feeling like I’m going to die, and I know I’m not. I’m not going to, Dusk.

VOICE

_[singsong]_

Lung and bone and blood and throat

It’s in your lungs and in each mote

DUSK

_[almost hysterical laughter, slightly muffled]_

It’s only, what, the fifth life or death situation our fucking car has put us into? 

But yeah, no. Like hell are we going down like this.

LEE

_[muttering]_

If this guy comes any closer I’m going to claw his dusty insides out with my fingernails.

VOICE

_[slightly closer]_

Eyes and mouth and ears and breath

Down and down and down and down-

DUSK

… You might get to test whether he has insides sooner than I’d like. 

[SFX: Wind picks up, sand rattles against the car, coughing]

CAR

[SFX: Radio crackles]

VOICE

_[right outside the window]_

Down and down and down and down

From dust to dust and ash to ash-

LEE

_[voice shaking]_

He’s right there, my nightmares have never gotten that close, he - he - he’s gonna wish he never had!

[SFX: thumping noise, someone throwing themself against the door]

_[scream of frustration; through gritted teeth:]_

You claw a guy’s face in half and he doesn’t have the grace to _bleed_!

[SFX: Car engine turning over, car accelerating, window rolling up. Wind sounds die down.]

CAR

Your death would be unproductive. Calm down, Lee. 

[SFX: someone punching/hitting the radio button off very hard]

CAR

_[radio clicks on]_

… Now that was just rude. 

DUSK

I really fucking hate you.

LEE

_[voice tight and shaking]_

Can you drive us to where we need to go next?

CAR

And where is that?

DUSK

_[sarcastically]_

You don’t already have some place picked out?

CAR

Well certainly. But you’ve had two major statement areas today and it’s time you rest. Where do you want to go?

LEE

…Let me pull up Google Maps.

DUSK

Two words, car. 

Tire. Iron.

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks off]


	6. Greenway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Near-death experience with local stench.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Being chased, event implied to have resulted in long-term medical issues

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Greenway:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4plmz7j2ju3inh/Greenway.mp3?dl=0)  


* * *

**Greenway**

_Location:_ Denver Branch Office

 _Date:_ September 1st, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Dusk

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

Original statement taken June 14th, 2009

_Topic:_ Near-death experience with local stench

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks on]

LEE

So how is it to be back in Denver?

DUSK

Strange. So much has changed since I was last here - I’ve worked at the UP Institute for almost two years now.

LEE

Mm. Long time.

DUSK

Not really, when you consider everyone else we work around.

LEE

Yes, let’s count the Head Archivist, who will work until they die.

DUSK

 _[shrug]_ Seniority rules.

LEE

Right. Well, what statement do we have today?

DUSK

Let’s see- we have a bunch from the branch office.. 

[SFX: Paper rustling]

Oh! Here. This was… from the first time I visited the archives I think. 

Maybe the second?

_[a snort of laughter]_

Statement concerning … ah a “near death experience with local stench.” They must have had _fun_ trying to summarize that into a neat topic statement. 

Statement begins:

It’s hard to say exactly when it started. Maybe it started when I was fourteen, fresh off of middle school and exploring on my own for the first time. Maybe it started before then, the first time I went down that path. Or maybe it was later, after my life turned upside down and biking became an escape from everything waiting for me at home. 

Whenever it started, it happened like this: I’d take my bike out most afternoons, roll down the hill to our local bike trail, and putter around for about an hour listening to podcasts and trying not to run over our local collection of joggers, runners, and walkers. In a lot of ways, I’d really lucked out. My house was perfectly situated between two greenbelts and an open space. It was maybe a five minute ride through my neighborhood, and then I was on trails. 

There’s nothing like trail-riding. In the mountains, in local parks and open-spaces, or, well, anywhere, really. It’s just you, your bike, and the world around you, your legs burning, your heart pounding, and your mind filled with the entirely visceral satisfaction of moving under your own power. Summer evenings are the best for it, those few moments where everything is cool and grey and the world hangs in balance around you. And then it’s falling into night and you’re almost home, coasting up just as the streetlights begin to kick on. 

Back then, there was one route I’d take on evenings when I was feeling especially agitated. It’s... a twisting under my skin, a need to move and climb and fly. I can’t fully describe it, only to say that it would drive me out of my room and up that route. 

_That route_ meandered through trails and parks and open spaces alike, never staying in one area for more than five minutes. I’d go up, and up, and up, my heart pounding in my throat as I climbed higher and higher, and then the trail would turn and I’d sit there for a moment, at the top of the world. My city’d be there beneath me, lights just beginning to flick on as the sun disappeared fully behind the mountains. I’d hang there for a moment, a thread suspended in the vast revolutions of the universe, and then I’d be flying. Down, down down, faster and faster until I felt like wings could’ve burst from my back and carried me up into that evening sky. 

The only problem was the sharp turn the route made into a neighborhood greenway. It was little more than a gravel trail with some small ponds and a bit of marshland running between the houses. Everything was always green- the grass of the backyards, the trees, the rushes and cattails, even the water itself- so alive that it felt fit to burst. The ponds were always covered with algae. The marshland never failed to be growing something new. A smell hung in the air, a bit like fish, a bit like marsh, a bit like freshly-cut grass, and a lot like something rotting, somewhere, just out of sight. 

At first, I was mostly disconcerted by the path. The smell was unpleasant, sure. But against the rest of the ride, well, I could put up with five minutes of discomfort. As the summer drew on, though, it got worse. It’s just rotting plants, I’d tell myself. The algae’s creating the smell. Maybe something died there. Then, in early August, I took one last turn down that trail. 

The air was thick and cloying that day. Clouds had been gathering for hours, preparing to unleash a lashing on the city. Something like static hummed in the back of my mind. Even as I approached the path, I didn’t want to go down it. Dread settled deep into my stomach, reaching out through my fingers and toes and making me slow down. Don’t go, it whispered. Don’t go.

I was being silly. I’d been down the path a million times, and, sure, it was creepy as hell, but there was nothing down there. I knew for a _fact_ that there was nothing down there. 

So I went. 

At first, everything was normal. The trail transitioned smoothly from open space to greenway, and the smell began to creep in around the edges. It was strong that day, the stench of things rotting from an overabundance of life. 

I passed the first of the ponds, pedaling smoothly along the dusty gravel. Then the smell intensified. It wormed its way into my nose, shoved itself down my throat, and invaded my lungs. I could taste rot against my tongue, foul and sharp and bitter. Imagine the worst thing you’ve tasted. Great. Now double that feeling of revulsion. Triple that. That might be close to how I was feeling at that moment. 

I wanted to stop. I wanted to rinse out my mouth, but again the dread settled and I knew- just as I knew there could be nothing on that path- that if I stopped I wouldn’t move again. 

So I kept going. 

I reached the second pond. The stench was just as bad here, but now-

There was something behind me now. Eyes that couldn’t see, tracking my every move. Maybe it was the source of the smell. Maybe it was the stench itself. Maybe it was something that’d lived there all along, dragged out by my fear.

I pedaled faster, tried to breathe through the smog cloaking my throat and nose. Two more minutes. My legs were burning. A hundred feet. The stench coiled around me, shifting and choking and burning. The eyes were closer. I couldn’t look back. Fifty feet. Ten feet. Something was dragging me back. I could feel it pulling on the wheel, trying to hang on, whatever you do don’t look back- 

Five feet. 

I couldn’t look back.

I shifted gears, pumped my legs faster, breathed in what little air I could reach and drove myself up the last bit of hill between me and the end of that path. 

As soon as the wheels of my bike touched concrete, the smell faded from my throat. I collapsed on the ground, my bike falling uselessly to the side, and hacked my lungs out. 

When I looked over at the trail I’d come from, nothing was there aside from the impression my bike had made in the gravel. Except- for just a few feet, the gravel on either side of the impression was scattered and disturbed, almost as though something had been dragged along by my bike. 

I avoided that path for the rest of the summer. 

A month after that ride, I was referred to the doctor’s office for having trouble breathing while I was working out. 

They diagnosed me with exercise-induced asthma. But...Whenever I use my inhaler now, I remember that choking, burning stench writhing through my lungs, and I wonder. 

I wonder. 

LEE

I feel that the summary was slightly off with this one.

DUSK

In their defense, how do you summarize “local biker runs into an apparently malevolent stench and possibly a related entity and somehow escapes with only exercise-induced asthma”?

LEE

You just did.

DUSK

 _[laughter]_ Usually they can be condensed into a topic- Cleveland, the stars, Shasta Lake- but I get what you mean. That was the start though. Led me, well, to here. 

LEE

Oh. I didn’t realize it was about you.

...Do you still have asthma?

DUSK

Yeah. Yeah, that was me. And I do, yeah. 

LEE

Huh.

Thanks for sharing..?

DUSK

You’re welcome, I think…? 

LEE

Ha. They’ll make archivists of us yet.

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks off]


	7. Hung

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The causes and effects of a rock-climbing accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Heights, falling, being trapped, apparent suicide.  
> (See end notes for summary & elaboration on apparent suicide)

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Hung:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/tco13ld6axyrq1w/Hung.mp3?dl=0)  


* * *

**Hung**

_Location:_ Denver Branch Office

 _Date:_ September 1st, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Harper

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

Original statement taken January 30th, 2013

_Topic:_ The causes and effects of a rock climbing accident

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks on]

LEE

Statement of Harper White, regarding the causes and effects of a rock climbing accident. Original statement taken January 30th, 2016. Statement begins.

The thing that I don’t understand is just- why me? Did Jason pick me out as someone he could make disappear without anyone noticing? Was I just a random bystander who happened to get in the way? I don’t see why it was me- I hadn’t done anything, I’d never even met the guy before Sophie introduced me. There wasn’t any reason for it to be _me_. 

Jason knew what was happening. He must have. It must have been his fault. But why did he pick me?

I was in my fourth year of college. More than ready to graduate, tired of living with my crappy roommates and dealing with the interminable day in, day out of school. I’d wake up, go to whatever lectures I had that day, show up at my labs, and then go back to my room and spend four plus hours writing essays, going over data, and working on finishing my dissertation. I was supposed to be graduating in the spring with a bachelor’s of science in chemistry, and boy was I eager to be gone. 

I had it all lined up. I’d graduate, pick up a job with Eastman Chemical back in Tennessee, and move in with my parents and sister until I’d made enough to pay off my student loans. After that, who knew? Maybe I’d travel the world. Go to Germany, work there for awhile, come back home, go back out again. Make a place for myself. Somewhere in there I’d find someone I wanted to settle down with.

I was doing everything _right_. 

Even with everything planned out, I still had days where I felt like I just needed to get away from it all. I’d stare at what was written of my dissertation, mess around on the computer, and eventually just give up. Nothing was getting done, so why even bother trying? 

It was days like that that I went down to my university’s gym. They had a two story rock wall there, and I had spent as much time as I could on the thing ever since getting belay certified in my freshman year. Usually, one of my friends- Sophie- would be on the wall at the same time, and we would spend an hour or two belaying for each other and trying to beat speed records on the most difficult routes. 

There was something calming about climbing. Looking at the rock wall, my next step was obvious. I was just a handhold away from wherever I wanted to go, pulling myself up against the pull of gravity. I’d go up and up and up, and my problems always felt so small compared with the size of that wall. 

Sophie and I had met during my freshman year. We had been on the same floor, and always seemed to find ourselves in the laundromat at the same time. She’d always try to strike up a conversation, and after a while I found myself falling into the routine of it. She was easy to talk to- liked to chatter about her life, her major in Communications and Media Studies, and whatever else was on her mind. 

A few weeks after we started regularly (and deliberately) meeting up, she suggested going climbing together. The first time we went, I fell in love with the activity. Still terrified, of course, that she’d let me fall. But she never did, and soon I was completely comfortable top roping, or climbing with a rope suspended at the top of a route. 

That, of course, is when she introduced me to lead climbing. Lead climbing, unlike top roping, requires the climber to clip into protection as you go up. If you slip, you fall not only to your clip, but twice the distance to your clip. If you’re not careful, you can even fall all the way to the floor with nothing to catch you. 

It was, to put it bluntly, terrifying. 

I was still moving upwards, but now the rope didn’t feel quite so safe. I could hang myself now, if I wasn’t careful. 

Anyways, by the time I reached the first semester of my senior year, I was a decent climber. I’d even been out into the Rockies once or twice. Y’know. Bouldering, the Flatirons, a few places in Eldorado Canyon. Sophie apparently decided that this meant I should join her in the climbing club, who would head out into the mountains every few weeks to do some “more serious” climbing. 

I tried to deflect at first. My professor needed me to run a few samples for him. My proposal for my dissertation was due. I wasn’t feeling well. But Sophie was… insistent. It’ll be fun, she said. 

I was… doubtful. 

Eventually, though, she roped me into going out the weekend after Thanksgiving. It was me, her, and one of her friends, an apparently sweet guy who introduced himself as Jason. We met outside campus that Friday morning, and by 9:00 we were headed up into the Rockies to some canyon that Jason and Sophie had climbed before. 

When the car finally rolled to a halt, we were sitting in a deserted parking lot near a trailhead that I’d never been to. Sophie and Jason pulled all their equipment out of the back, handed me my own twenty-pound pack, and we were off. 

The trail wound down the side of the mountain into a narrow valley. A small stream ran beside the path, chattering merrily in the cool fall air. Pine trees rose above us, filling the air with the scents of vanilla and sharp, fresh sap. Sophie led the way, with Jason following. I brought up the rear. 

As we continued, the walls of the valley began to narrow in on us, growing steeper and steeper. The sky was a thin ribbon somewhere above us. Finally, Sophie stopped and began to pull out her belay equipment. I turned to look at the wall beside us. It rose a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty feet into the air, a wall of jagged rock and crumbling shelves. Here and there I could see bolts driven into the rock, but they were few and far between. I’d have to place my own gear and protection equipment. 

I don’t know what my expression looked like, but it probably wasn’t happy, since Sophie grinned and told me that it was a lot easier than it looked. I was incredulous. Sure I’d done some traditional climbing, but nothing of this scale. 

And then I saw Jason. Jason had opened his pack and withdrawn a small pouch of chalk and a pair of climbing shoes. He wasn’t wearing gear. He wasn’t preparing ropes like Sophie and I were. 

He was going to free solo the route- no ropes, no harness, nothing to catch him except the ground if he fell. 

I think I started sputtering in incredulity. It was dangerous to climb without any gear, and if he fell we were in the middle of nowhere, with a forty-five minute hike to get back to the nearest road. 

He just laughed at me, said that he’d climbed this route before, and that it wasn’t anything to worry about. 

Nothing to worry about. Sure. 

In the first few minutes of the climb, everything went... Surprisingly well. I attached my first few leads, and started hauling myself up the rock face. What had looked daunting from the bottom was… less so up close. Handholds were plentiful, and as I climbed it felt like the rock was directing itself under my hand, leading me just that much closer to the thin sliver of sky above. 

Beside me, Jason kept pace, easily going from handhold to foothold. He grinned at me. I couldn’t help but grin back, wide-eyed with exhilaration and adrenaline. I could see why they both liked this spot so much- it was _fun_ to climb. 

I was half way up, a bit below Jason, when things started going… strange. I’d just clipped into a new lead, and I chanced a look down to where Sophie should have been belaying me. All I could see was swirling clouds, completely covering the valley floor below. My rope stretched down there somewhere, disappearing into the mist. 

Alright, I thought. A fog blew in. Nothing to worry about. Sophie’d be fine down there. The bottom was still there, even if I couldn’t see it. 

There was... something though that made me think the drop was a lot longer than the two hundred feet I’d climbed. 

Then Jason laughed. He looked delighted, somehow, this wide grin splitting his face. He shouted something- see you at the bottom, maybe? And then he just- jumped. Right off of a two-hundred foot cliff. He rocketed past me, waving and shouting, “Have fun up there!”

I think I screamed. I’m not sure. I was hanging off of a cliff in the middle of nowhere, and the person who I’d been climbing with had just _killed himself_. 

I reached for the next handhold. I didn’t know what to do. Would Sophie stop belaying when Jason’s body crashed to the ground next to her? What would she do? I tugged twice on the rope, our signal to give me some slack. 

She didn’t respond. I tugged again. Maybe she was distracted by Jason- what had been Jason. I reached back towards my lead. Maybe I could get back down the same way I’d come up. 

I reached out to brace myself against the rock. My fingers scrabbled for a handhold. There was one there- I _knew_ there was one there. I’d used it coming up. My fingers closed on smooth, flat rock. There was nothing. Not a crimp, not a crack, nothing I could fit my hand into. My grip on the ledge above me felt even more tenuous now, my hand slick with sweat. 

I tried to stand up. There had to be a hold somewhere. Then my left shoe slipped out of its hold. I screamed and fell, the jarring feeling of the slip echoing up into my arm and making me lose my grip. 

It felt like I fell for ages. It couldn’t have been more than a second or two- I was only about half a foot past my last lead. But it took so, so long. I was spinning through the air, my rope and harness barely even there. I thought I was going to see Jason at the bottom after all.

And then-

And then it came to halt with a sudden, jerking snap. My legs and hips stung where the harness had bit into them. My arms and hands were scrapped and bleeding. I was panting, and as hung there tears started tracking down my face.

Everything was going wrong. So wrong. I looked back down. Still nothing but swirling clouds. A thin strip of blue sky above me. The canyon walls rising all around me, vast and imposing. And me. In the middle. Hanging from a single rope, so, so close to falling. 

I needed to get down. I needed to get out of there, to forget Jason and Sophie, to go back to polymer synthesis, my dissertation, and the life I thought I was going to lead. 

The first step was to get back on the cliff and climb down. Slowly. Controlled. Bracing myself against the cliff with one hand, I reached out with the other. Anything would work. Even a crack. 

The handholds that had been so easy to find before were gone. I looked. I felt around. I scrabbled with my feet and tried to reach up to the bolt my lead was anchored to. The lead had somehow ended up a good few feet above my head. My hand wouldn’t reach it. There weren’t any other protrusions in the rock- just a flat sheet of reddish gray stone stretching up and up and up. 

I hung there, crying. Sophie wasn’t responding. Jason was dead- maybe? He’d jumped off the wall- and I was stuck. Hung. I couldn’t move. The cliffs stretched up and up around me, hemming me in. The drop loomed beneath me. Above me, like an unreachable answer, the sky. 

To be honest with you, I don’t really remember what happened after that. I know I hung there for a long, long time. Minutes seemed to blur together into a miasma of fear and adrenaline. The walls around me loomed ever higher, unchanging slabs of rock. Maybe I passed out. I’m not sure. 

All I know is that I woke up some time after that on the floor of the canyon, still wearing my harness. The rope was neatly coiled next to me. All of my other bags were gone. Sophie and Jason weren’t there. 

I stumbled to my feet and slowly started dragging myself back towards the trailhead. Things were still blurry- I remember passing other people. I remember one group- a guy and his girlfriend, maybe- catching me as I fell and walking me back up to the trailhead. Then it's just flashes. Sirens. An ambulance. EMTs rushing around. One of them trying desperately to keep me awake and talking. 

Then there’s nothing. 

I was missing for weeks. _Weeks._ They found me thirty miles north of where Sophie and Jason had taken me. 

And speaking of Jason-

I saw him once after that. Alive, somehow. He just winked at me. Asked me how I’d enjoyed my climb. 

He knew what had happened to me, the bastard. He knew exactly what was going on, and somehow he was _alive_. It must have been his fault somehow. I don’t know how, but it was. It has to be his fault. 

Sophie- I haven’t seen Sophie since that trip. They said she went back home. I don’t know where that is. Maybe I never will. 

And as for my plan? I’d missed enough school that I wouldn’t be able to make up my classes. I’d be graduating a semester late- and that was if I could keep it together long enough to pass my spring finals. 

I did everything right, and it still wasn’t enough. 

I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to go rock climbing again. 

LEE

Statement ends.

...I still want to learn rock climbing. But maybe just in the gym.

DUSK

 _[agreeing]_ Yeah. That was…

A lot.

LEE

Wanna go get terrible junk food at a gas station before we hit the road?

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks off]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary:  
> The statement giver goes on a rock climbing trip. Halfway up, fog rolls in, and they can no longer see the ground or their belayer. The person they're rock climbing with, who's free soloing the route (climbing without ropes or harness) jumps off, and the statement giver thinks he committed suicide. They later see him walking around, alive and perfectly fine. There is a strong implication that he caused the "accident" to happen in the first place.


	8. Storks & Cranes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The creation of children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Implied manipulation, people being selfish/thoughtless

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Storks & Cranes:  
  
[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/3c7vrdn0iyo6fvu/Storks%20%26%20Cranes.mp3?dl=0)  


* * *

**Storks & Cranes**

_Location:_ Des Moines, Iowa

 _Date:_ September 11th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Bianca

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ The creation of children

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking on]

BIANCA

I’m not sure how much of that town I have in my blood. I - you’ll drive through it. So. I thought I’d give you a warning. Before you did. Of the things you’ll see. The people you’ll meet. The houses…

Don’t judge me too harshly, okay? For the things I say? I know they sound - just, unable to happen. Like they could _never_ happen, or, or like it’s _cursed._ And maybe it is! _[softer]_ Maybe it is. _[normally]_ But it happened, is happening still, I visited them last night, my - my family that is, and I saw them still so, I figured I would warn you, tell you, what’s going on.

There are houses made of plastic wood. And they have hives in them, and holes from storms, and they rot and sink and blister. But mostly they sigh and are abandoned. Not by the people who live there. But by the ones who are supposed to care.

It is an hour drive to a polling place, My Dear Eyes. The nearest university is three hours. The radios sparkle with static and news. Books are old and crinkle at the edges. There is dust in the air. It comes from the corn, and from the rust.

_[a harsh, dry laugh]_

Rust, Misters Eyes. Have you ever had rust in your eyes? Dry, crackling flakes it is, hard, painful, but not difficult to get out. But it leaves grit. You blink for ages. There is always more to get out. You weep and wipe orange for days.

It is everywhere in that town, my town, Misters Eyes. It crawls up the old windmills and the school buses. The couch nails that stuck out of our old furniture. Creaky old swings with chains ready to snap - but not then. Perhaps not ever. But we all hear the ticking of a clock. The flaking of time slipping away into the wind or onto the ground.

Salesmen circle empty mattress and furniture stores. Empty storefronts in downtown. Listless Christmas decorations downtown, billboards proclaiming advertising space - but why would I give a statement about something you’ve driven through already? Something so ubiquitous and common? We all know the signs of starving Middle America and we all know that there is nothing to do but help.

No. I am here to talk about the children.

In the middle of a cursed landscape can you blame the parents for wanting a blessing?

Someone came to them, they said. Someone in white, on thin legs, who could only bow. Not hunch - bow. They offered love, and birth, in a place that was dying, and spoke of people who would never leave for greener pastures. Who would never forget to call or neglect to visit once a month, or grow angry at beer bottles left on the floor, or disagree with sports.

Some were concerned with this and asked about autonomy, sapience, creation rights.

Many were just… hungry.

And so the visitor came and visited those who wanted children and crafted with them, and those who didn’t received other gifts, and they were happy in their own way. The children needed caretakers, you see, when their parents couldn’t be spared from their jobs - and these newly convinced citizens were perfect for babysitting. I don’t know how the visitor did it. I… don’t want to.

Ms. Smith used to discuss poetry with me. Now she just sits and looks at me pleasantly, almost vacant, and her teeth are too flat, like the comb of a tractor. I miss her, and she’s sitting right across from me.

 _[a deep breath]_ The children were crafted carefully from treasure and scrap around the town. I don’t exactly know the choices involved - simply that there had to be love involved, but not too much love, or the thing would fall apart.

And that was the other part. The visitor never referred to them as ‘beings,’ only ‘things,’ despite calling them ‘children.’ It was unsettling, to hear it described back to me, but my parents and friends in the town never seemed bothered. I never spoke up - after all, what did I know, out here in the city? I had escaped. I was no longer one of them, no matter the scar on my leg and the rust in my bones.

So over the next three days they built their children and then it was… silent. After a week I came to visit because I couldn’t handle not knowing if it had worked or not. I mean come on. A craft project capturing the whole town with some sort of white dressed cultist leading them? I _had_ to go!

And when I arrived… well… there they were. The children.

Heads made of tires or wheels, sternums of flat sheet metal and steering rods, legs of plastic and PVC pipe and drywall. Some children had joints of string so two pieces could clunk together, while others consisted of springs and coils, or wobbled stiff-legged and no-armed through town. Googly eyes and wood grains followed me as I went. Sometimes literally. Sometimes they just stared. One of them shook my hand, and I wish I could have asked it how its parents were.

They didn’t even have name tags. But I suppose everyone already knew everyone. The benefits of a small town, huh?

They didn’t harm me as I walked through. And when I went back to my car after talking to everyone about this, saw Ms. Smith, they didn’t bang on the windows, just kinda stood in the way like cows do. I don’t think they’re much used to road hazards yet, being two weeks old and all.

I just tell you because… I think - I thought you should know. It scared me when I first saw it. And… it makes me sad. Seeing their vacant eyes patrolling. Bumping into the borders of the town and falling over. Because they can’t leave, you know? They’re stuck there, forever. Made out of the town, living in the town, forever in the town. They’ll be there when their parents die. And who will take care of them then?

 _[a dry huff/humorless laugh]_ Ah, the curse of the immortals. Who thought it would be over something with a spork as a face?

DUSK

...Statement ends.

Are you alright?

BIANCA

No, of course not. What do you think? I just told you I’m sad, and now I’m angry about it as well. How selfish do these people have to be? How selfish were my _parents?_

LEE

One might say they were trying to leave a legacy. And that they were lonely.

BIANCA

Mm… But they made them to be _trapped!_ They had no thought of their new children’s well-being or longevity!

DUSK

_[softly]_

They don’t regret it either, do they?

BIANCA

No… no, they don’t. _[a very, very soft sigh; glumly:]_ It’s the happiest I’ve seen the town in… a very, very long time.

LEE

...I’m sorry.

BIANCA

_[short, bitter laugh]_

It’s not your fault.

DUSK

 _[frustrated]_

It’s not-

No. No it’s not. But we can still say we’re sorry, and mean it.

We can still feel sympathy.

Because thoughtless actions hurt, especially when the ones at fault don’t give a _damn_ about the consequences.

_[a sigh]_

So we’re sorry. 

BIANCA

Right, well, thank you. I- I shouldn’t - I shouldn’t be holding up the line. Drive safely.

DUSK & LEE

_[a murmur]_

You too.

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking off]


	9. The Dragon's Cauldron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black Dragon's Cauldron, Yellowstone

**Streaming and Download Links:**

The Dragon's Cauldron:  


[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8rli039l1a3d61f/The%20Dragon%27s%20Cauldron.mp3?dl=0)

* * *

**The Dragon’s Cauldron**

_Location:_ Yellowstone National Park

 _Date:_ September 14th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Rin

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Black Dragon’s Cauldron

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks]

_[a sigh]_

I grew up maybe an hour outside Yellowstone National Park. It was a favorite place of my family to visit on weekends. As soon as my brother and I woke up Saturday morning, we’d be off, piled into my mom’s tiny car and driving along the twisting roads leading into the park. We were experts at dodging first-time tourists and the worst of the crowds- though there was no avoiding the buffalo and other wildlife that sometimes decided to make whatever stretch of road we were on their bridge. 

We’d spend hours up there, hiking the trails and trying to time our routes so that we’d catch Old Faithful going off. Sometimes we’d even camp up there, set up our tents and hang our food from tree branches to try and stop the bears from getting after it. 

Almost never worked, but we tried. 

By the time I was thirteen, my brother had his favorite place to visit in the park. He loved the Norris Geyser Basin area. I’m not sure if it was the look of the place or just the violence of the erupting geysers, but he tried to get us to hike the trails in that area whenever we could. 

For me though, I loved the entire area. A dormant supervolcano caldera with two magma chambers and enough geologic activity to create geysers, bubbling mud pots, fumaroles, and lakes with water colorful enough to exist in some 90s sci-fi cartoon? Hell yes. I loved it. 

As I got older, I started doing more research into the history of the park. Over eleven thousand years. Can you believe that? Eleven thousand years of human history took place in and around that area. The Clovis and then the Folsom peoples were there at first, and then later on the Sioux and the Blackfeet, the Kiowa and the Crow and the Tukudika, along with others. 

The Kiowa even have a story about how the Yellowstone area became their homeland. It’s beautiful, and takes place near the feature I think now called Dragon’s Mouth Spring. It’s not the place to tell it now, of course, but if you get a chance to hear it-

Anyways. In the late nineteenth century, however, European explorers arrived. And with them came war and disease and systematic, widespread oppression. I’m not sure how much I should say about that, about how the U.S Government forced people out of their homes to create a “pleasuring ground” and how racism and publicity efforts contributed to stereotypes and stories still around today. I think it’s wrong to discuss the history of the park without mentioning it though. 

By the early 20th century, for better or worse, Yellowstone was an official national park, guarded by the U.S military. That military presence left in 1918, leaving the Yellowstone run by the National Park Service. 

Sometime between the winter of 1947 and June 1948, a crack near Sour Lake exploded, coating the trees and surroundings with boiling, muddy goop. Where there was once solid ground, there now was a roiling, muddy lake. No one saw it happen- the fall before, there was nothing, and when a ranger finally thought to check up on the area- boom. Mud explosion. Geologists thought that underground changes had likely diverted heat energy from Sour Lake to form a seething, lashing pit of black mud. One park ranger decided to call it “Black Dragon’s Cauldron.”

They’d end up being more right with that name than they knew. 

Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. It was just another interesting fact about Yellowstone, and I resolved to go see Black Dragon’s Cauldron as soon as possible. Even more interesting was the fact that the Cauldron has moved 200 feet to the south along its crack. What’s better than a boiling pit of black mud? A boiling pit of black mud that _moves_.

So, sometime in my junior year, I dragged my parents and my brother up to the Mud Volcano to go take a look at the Cauldron. 

Looking back, we didn’t frequent that area very often. It smelled nasty, usually (though often no worse than other areas of the park in my opinion), and while boiling mud isn’t something you see every day, most of us found other areas of the park more pleasant- better for hiking, and with less of a chance of getting splashed with extremely acidic muddy water. 

By that point, I knew pretty much everything there was to know about the park without having to actually take college courses about it. I’d read the updates the USGS- United States Geological Survey- posted about geologic and volcanic activity, and listened to people talk about their experiences in the park. I knew all the best places for hiking, where not to go in the summer (when the mosquitos swarmed so thick the air looked black), and when the geysers would probably erupt. 

Still, something about Black Dragon’s cauldron caught my eye. The spring is about eighty feet wide and about two-hundred feet long- it’s shifted since its first explosive entrance into the world in 1948. The waters roil and bubble, splattering dark, muddy water across the surface and (occasionally) onto the shore. 

In pictures and videos, it’s not particularly impressive. It looks like someone dumped a bucket of food coloring into a bunch of muddy water and set it to boil. In person, though- 

In person the spring has a presence. It’s hard to describe. It feels- not alive, not like some of the other geysers and springs in the park. But like something in it is alive. You look down, and you think maybe you can see black eyes looking up from below, watching you. Then you look again and it’s just bubbling, muddy water. 

No one lingered for long around that lake. My parents said that the area “just wasn’t their favorite.” My brother insisted that there was something creepy about it. I was just fascinated. I could understand why that unnamed ranger had called it “Black Dragon’s Cauldron.” It felt like there could be a dragon under there, its heat making the lake bubble, its breath staining the water black. 

I returned to Black Dragon’s Cauldron two weeks after I graduated high school. My parents had given me their old car as a graduation gift, and I’d wasted no time in driving myself up to the park for a day hike. I headed off on the familiar roads, winding and twisting my way up to the Mud Volcano. 

It was still early in the morning. Birds were chirping. The sun was pleasantly warm. I took my time on the hike, meandering up towards the Cauldron. Surprisingly, no one else was out. I was alone on the trail for the first time in my life- and to be honest, I loved it. It was just me, the park, and the forces laying dormant beneath my feet. 

I wandered up to the guard rail overlooking the cauldron. I looked out and down, along the two-hundred feet of bubbling mud, and for a moment everything was blissfully, peacefully normal. 

That’s about when I noticed that I couldn’t hear anything except for the bubbling of the mud. The birds had gone silent. No insects stirred the air. Even the breeze had completely died down. Everything was perfectly, absolutely still. 

And then- a presence. Black eyes watching me from the lake, begging me to look down, come down little child, come down. I looked down, and down, and somehow I kept looking down. The water seemed almost- clear. And there, stretched out along the length of the Cauldron, was the dragon. 

It was thin, slender and sinewy. I could see muscles building up into the massive, translucent wings folded over its back. Every scale was visible in exacting detail, every talon, every spike, the tail that stretched out across at least half the length of the spring. 

My eyes skated towards its head, and there- its eyes were open, as deep and black as the night sky. I could fall into those eyes, tumble over and over and keep falling down and down into the hot belly of the earth. 

The dragon stirred. It scrabbled at the bottom of the lake, pulling slender legs under the bulk of its body. Wings unfolded from its back. And always, always those eyes, staring into mine. 

Come down, it said. The water is lovely. Come down, child. 

It was about then that I decided to get out of there. Yellowstone, I could deal with. Yellowstone, I knew. Dragons? 

Yeah, nope. 

So I ran. I heard the lake bubble and stir behind me, a thousand tons of water sleeting off of a body long buried. 

I remember looking back once to see the dragon leaping into the air, all glittering black scales and deep, dark eyes. 

Come down, I thought I heard. Not with my ears. Not like I’m speaking to you now. But somewhere- in here. In my head. 

I kept running. I ran down two miles of trail that day, hardly stopping until I reached my car. My hands and legs were scratched from where I’d tripped and fallen. My shoulders were sore from the constant bumping of my backpack. 

But I was alive. The dragon hadn’t eaten me. 

And hey, I knew for certain that Black Dragon’s Cauldron was probably the best named feature at Yellowstone. 

I got back home around sunset that day. Somehow, my little adventure with the dragon had taken hours. My parents tried to ask me what had happened, if I was alright, but- how could I tell them?

A dragon?

No one would ever believe me. 

So.. yeah. 

DUSK

Statement ends.

Did you ever go back there?

RIN

Never had the courage, if I’m being honest. I’m in college now- geology- and I don’t have a lot of time for hiking. Maybe I’ll join a research program at some point since I’m at Montana State, but otherwise- yeah I’m not going back up there alone. 

_[a pause]_

Y’know, are you two headed up through Yellowstone? 

LEE

Yup. That’s the plan. 

RIN

If you have a chance- can you check for me?

DUSK

You want us to see if she’s still there?

RIN

Yeah- uh-

LEE

Is there any way we can contact you?

RIN

Yeah, here. I’m Here- I’m- here. 

LEE

We’ll let you know if we see anything. 

RIN

… Thank you. And thank you for listening. 

DUSK

Of course. Good luck with college. 

_[brief pause]_

LEE

Right. Is that everyone for today?

DUSK

I think so. No one else is in line, at least. 

[SFX: Papers rustling]

LEE

Are we checking out the Cauldron tomorrow? I mean- Dragons. Hello?

DUSK

 _[laugh]_ Yeah, sounds like a plan. 

[SFX: Tape recorder clicks off]


	10. Something There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadowy beings haunting the statement giver's home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> Being watched/hunted, not being believed, eventual loss of identity, mild violence

**Streaming and Download Links:** ****

Something There:  


[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/28mjy4p13avbw2w/Something%20There.mp3?dl=0)

Archivist's Note 2:  


[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8kw0mda0vospxjs/Archivist%27s%20Note%202.mp3?dl=0)

* * *

**Something There**

_Location:_ Henderson, Nevada

 _Date:_ September 20th, 2015

 _Statement Giver:_ Unknown

 _Recorded by:_ Lee & Dusk

_Topic:_ Shadowy beings haunting the statement giver’s home

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking on] 

DUSK

As soon as you’re ready

UNKNOWN

There are things that live in the shadows of my house. They’re only there in the dark flickers when you turn your head, in deeper shadows that move and sprint away as you approach, but They’re there. 

Watching. 

Waiting. 

I don’t know when they first arrived. For as long as I can remember, they’ve been shifting quietly at the edges of my vision. Monsters in my home, in my closet, and in my chest. 

Sometimes, when I’m up late working or playing games, there’ll be eyes staring at the back of my neck. I’ll whirl to face it, but there’s nothing but a flicker of shadow, a deeper darkness than what’s normally cast by the pale blue light of my computer screen.

Sometimes I turn to go upstairs, and something bounds away on four paws, disappears with a flicker of a shadowy tail. 

Sometimes I look over at the door to my room, and there’s a thin shadow, standing upright on two legs, a clawed hand clutched around a doorway. A breath later, and it’s gone. _Is it my eyes playing tricks?_ I wonder. _Are they there? Am I dreaming?_

It gets worse in the winter. On those bitter nights when the wind howls around the eaves and cold seeps through the cracks in the walls, the shadows draw together thick and close and biting. A hunter with padded feet and dripping spines stalks the open floor. A wisp of a figure with clawed hands and black pits for eyes watches me while I work. When I go to bed I have to run, slam the door behind me and get my back to a wall. 

They can’t hurt you if you’re watching them, after all. 

I have to believe that. 

They can’t hurt you if you know they’re there. After all, everybody knows that naming the thing- seeing it- makes it less terrifying.

I tried to tell other people once, you know. I told them about running, about something leaping for me only to vanish as I turned to look at it. I told them that they wouldn’t believe me, that they’d wonder if I was crazy, that I didn’t need them to understand my story. 

I told them that they’d think I was lying, and they did. They lauded me for that, did you know? They said that I’d gotten at “the meaning of truth.” 

What meaning? That I can tell the truth and still not be believed? That there are things in my house and in my shadows and there’s nothing I can do about it? That if I tell them how they’ll react they’ll call it “genius” and assume I’m lying for the sake of the story? 

I know it’s childish, to fear the monster hiding in the closet. You turn the light on, open the doors, and there’s nothing there. You know there’s nothing there. Your parents know there’s nothing there. Your friends scoff at you and tell you that Santa isn’t real and that monsters don’t really lurk under your bed. 

_[sigh]_

One of my friends told me she believed me, once. I… I just shrugged and told her that there wasn’t actually anything there. I couldn’t- Somehow her belief made the whole thing worse. Made it more real. 

Because- My monsters always were- are- there. The shadows are real and dangerous, and someday I’m not going to look over my shoulder in time. I’ll climb out of bed, flick the light on, and open my door. The hallway will look normal for once, no shadowy spines or willowy figures. I’ll reach the top of the stairwell, and the lights will flicker. Once. Twice. Darkness. Something behind me will open its eyes. It will crouch. It will leap. I’ll whirl. 

I won’t be quick enough. 

Its claws will dig into my neck, and my other shadow will slink around the corner, backlit by the city lights, its too-long hands outstretched. The one behind me will pin me down with claws and spines, while the other will cup my face. Tenderly, maybe. 

We’ve been together for a long time, after all. 

It’ll smile, neon lights splitting across its face. It’s eyes will be so large in a face made of smoke and mirrors. Maybe I’ll find myself reflected there. 

I wonder. 

Then- then I’ll be shadow and static and something else will wear my body, live my life. 

So here’s the truth, as I’ve told it once before:

There are things there. There are things there, and I can’t tell you what they are, only that they’re there and watching. They’re there, and they’re watching, and I know that they know that nobody knows. So I keep my back to the wall on those cold, dark nights. I keep my back to the wall and my mind on the shadows around me, and I look up and back and stare them right in their non-existent eyes. The shadows around me shift and waver, and then I’m moving, running to my bedroom and pulling up the covers, because everybody knows that hiding under the blanket makes the monsters go away.

Behind me a darker shadow coalesces. Behind me two beings of smoke and static open eyes made of darkness and watch.

Waiting. 

DUSK

Are you- will you be alright? Can we do anything?

STATEMENT GIVER

 _[a harsh laugh]_ It makes it worse that you believe me, y’know? 

_[rhetorically]_ Why did I think this was a good idea?

[SFX: Tape recorder clicking off] 

**Archivist's Note**

End of collection. As a reminder, all recordings can be found in the deep stacks and in the digital database under S;F15.2015.06-09:LD.


	11. Credits & Notes

**Streaming and Download Links:**

Credits & Notes:  


[Dropbox Download](https://www.dropbox.com/s/v73nlaft20zc0h4/Credits%20MP3.mp3?dl=0)

* * *

There’s a lot of notes and thank-you’s to be said here, so buckle up. 

First off, I (Dusk) would like to thank Kai (LeanMeanSaltineMachine) who, when I asked them if they wanted to do something for PodTogether, said “Yes!” and then “What’s podtogether?” This project wouldn’t exist without them, their ideas, and their writing. 

Next, we’d like to thank all the wonderful people who added their voices to this project:

Grace was the voice of the statement giver Grace in Firelight and contributed many spooky stories of her own for use and inspiration. You can find her on instagram [ @nonsycamore ](https://www.instagram.com/nonsycamore/).

LaurenBrightWing gave us the idea for Empty City, voiced the statement giver Lauren, and read the statement itself. You can find them over on their tumblr [ @laurenbrightwing ](https://laurenbrightwing.tumblr.com/) .

ShadowLynx248 was the voice of the car in Recording: Gas and Dust to Dust. 

Carboncopies was the voice of the unknown statement giver in Dust to Dust. Their AO3 page can be found under [ carboncopies ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carboncopies).

Lee was the voice of Bianca in Storks & Cranes. You can find them on Twitter [ @aldergroves ](https://twitter.com/aldergroves).

ItsADrizzit was the voice of Rin in the statement Dragon’s Cauldron. She can be found on her Tumblr [ @ItsADrizzit ](https://itsadrizzit.tumblr.com/) or on her twitter [ @hanako_noriko ](https://twitter.com/hanako_noriko?lang=en). 

Olive2read was the voice of the unknown statement giver in Something There.

And last but in no way least, Mouse was the voice of the Head Archivist Taylor Garcia and the reader of the metadata associated with each statement. You can find them on AO3 under [ MouseK ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MouseK).

Thank you all for your hard work! It was so exciting to see this project come together. 

In no particular order, the sound effects used in this podfic were:

[ Tape recorder.wav ](https://freesound.org/people/Pogotron/sounds/61075/), created by Pogotron;  
[ rustling paper.wav ](https://freesound.org/people/keweldog/sounds/181774/), created by Keweldog;  
[ Digital Radio Rack Unit Knob Turn.wav ](https://freesound.org/people/Joao_Janz/sounds/477611/), created by Joao_Janz;  
[ Radio.wav ](https://freesound.org/people/Paracelsus/sounds/32266/), created by Paracelsus;  
[Sand Storm](https://freesound.org/people/gallifreyanbuccaneer/sounds/426560/#), by gallifreyanbuccaneer;  
[sand falling on paper.aiff](https://freesound.org/people/mwmarsh/sounds/85932/#), by mwmarsh;  
[Flowing Sand](https://freesound.org/people/SteveMeli/sounds/215006/#), by SteveMeli;

And additional sounds from freesound.org.

Finally, two of these statements were suggested by people on Discord who were kind enough to give us their spooky stories. Thank you to everyone who gave us ideas!

Firelight is an adaptation of a story Grace gave to us:

“My dad took me to a campground where he told me the story of a nearby rock outcropping that formed a shallow cave. He and his friends had been drinking but not rowdy at their campsite when they saw the cave light up with a fire. An oddly proportioned human figure was dancing erratically near the flames and they could only see the silhouette as they decided to make their way over. Halfway to the cave (about 300 yards total) my dad and his friends were all shoved to the ground by some force and when they all got up and looked at the cave, it was dark again. They sprinted there and found the little firepit the figure had used but it was cold to the touch. Needless to say they didn't sleep that night.”

LaurenBrightWing also gave us the idea and opening for Empty City:

“I don’t really have a story but I can personally testify that there is something so fucking creepy about Cleveland Ohio  
It is an empty city  
You see people but it feels like there are far too few? Enough to reassure you that SOMEONE lives there, but like. Definitely nowhere near enough. The roads are quiet and I usually go when it’s cold and snowing and the whole place just feels like a city for the Lonely”

Finally, thank you to the PodTogether mods for putting together this event!

If you want to read more about some of the research and origin behind some of the statements, a commentary can be found on tumblr [here](https://duskdragon39.tumblr.com/post/628151166430330881/dust-cant-settle-commentary). Dusk’s tumblr tag for this fic is #twisting roads and can be found [ here ](http://duskdragon39.tumblr.com/tagged/twisting-roads).

We hope you enjoyed listening and reading. 

\- Kai and Dusk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


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